


Pancakes

by soaracrossthesky



Category: One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 20:13:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18818176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soaracrossthesky/pseuds/soaracrossthesky
Summary: 'With as much hot-blooded fervor as usual, she throws open the kitchen door, ready to salsa-step through it.A tall, lanky figure wearing a ridiculous chef hat and the frilliest kind of apron imaginable whirls around with a high-pitched scream.Lydia screams right back before her brain can process the sight of Schneider standing at their stove, brandishing a spatula like a sword.'Schneider makes breakfast for the Alvarez family on a special day.





	Pancakes

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at writing for this fandom - I fell in love with the show hard and fast. While this isn't the first or most pressing idea for a odaat fic I had, it really just had to be written yesterday.  
> Please excuse any errors in the Spanish bits (corrections would be welcome if you find something wrong), it has been far too long since I've had any opportunity to brush up on my Spanish.  
> I thought about writing out Lydia's accent as I have seen it in other fics on here but decided against it. I didn't want it to end up inappropriate or even offensive. I am sure all of you know her accent well enough to apply it to the words in your head.  
>   
> This work is unbeta'd. Neither English nor Spanish are my native language.

A high, long note opens the trumpet solo of the song that is meant to wake up the Cuban household with a more or less faint sense of their heritage as well as a lively rhythm.

It takes three turns up and down the musical scale until the curtain in the middle of the living room is drawn back with dramatic suddenness and Lydia emerges, crossing the way to the kitchen in synch with the accelerating melody. With as much hot-blooded fervor as usual, she throws open the kitchen door, ready to salsa-step through it.

A tall, lanky figure wearing a ridiculous chef hat and the frilliest kind of apron imaginable whirls around with a high-pitched scream.

Lydia screams right back before her brain can process the sight of Schneider standing at their stove, brandishing a spatula like a sword. Immediately, her scream merges into a squeal of delight with just a hint of affront and she covers her chest with one hand.

“ _Ay dios mío_ , Essneider,” she exclaims and enters the kitchen properly. “Not that I am not _encantada_ to have you over for _desayuno_ first thing _por la ma_ _ñ_ _ana_ but since when do you make that breakfast?”

Schneider, slowly calming down from the sudden scare himself, breaks into a wide, happy grin. “¡Buenos días, Lydia!” His pronunciation is as awful as always but his well-meaning enthusiasm about his few scraps of Spanish mostly make up for it as usual. He leans down and presses a quick, gentle kiss on her left cheek. “Sit down, sit down. Coffee is almost ready. As are,” he hurries back to the stove and pokes around in the frying pan with the spatula. “As are the pancakes.”

Lydia stares at him, her eyebrows climbing further and further up her forehead. With a burst of speed, she is standing next to him and peeks skeptically into the pan. And indeed, true to his word, there is a round, golden pancake sizzling inside, two big stacks of already done ones sitting on plates on the counter next to it. She reaches for the moka pot and opens the lid. Critically, she looks at the sludge inside. Then, she pokes the brown mass with her pinky and licks the residue off it. For a moment, she frowns, standing so still it feels almost unnatural to see her like that, then she throws back her head and arms and gives a delighted exclamation of joy. “Ah! ¡ _Oh, Essneider, qué fantastico! Eso es un Cafecito Cubano casi decente_. You paid good attention to my cooking lessons. ¡ _Estoy_ _orgullosa_!” She pats his arm.

He gives her his sappiest goofy smile and visibly preens under her compliment. With a slightly awkward flip of his wrist, he shovels the pancake out of the pan and onto the smaller heap. He switches off the stove and wipes his hands on his apron.

“C’mon, Lydia, sit down. I’ve got this. Vale?”

“¡ _Vale_! You are the breakfast cook _por hoy_.” She waves her hands in a decisive gesture, sealing the agreement, and leaves the kitchen. Schneider looks almost dumbstruck at how little a fight she puts up. After a moment of stillness, he scrambles after her to the table and pulls out a chair for her.

“¡ _Qué_ gentleman!” Lydia croons happily and sits down on the proffered chair. Her gaze falls onto the table for the first time and a deep gasp escapes her. A beautiful bouquet of gardenias is sitting on the middle of the table, right in between the five sets of plates and cutlery and a small bottle of maple syrup. “Ooh, _qué_ beautiful,” she almost swoons and reaches for the vase, leaning across the table to sniff at the flowers. She closes her eyes and sighs. Schneider does a little victory jig on his way back into the kitchen, obviously pleased with her reaction. Lydia ignores him in favor of inhaling the sweet scent of the gardenias.

Behind her, Penelope rounds the corner, yawning widely and scratching the back of her head. “ _Ay, mami_. Is everything okay? I thought I heard someone screaming.”

Schneider twirls out of the kitchen, balancing the plates with pancakes on his hands, apron billowing from his movement. Penelope almost runs into him and screams at the sudden sight. Schneider flinches and almost drops the plates and screams right back.

“Jesus, Schneider,” Penelope yelps and clutches her chest in a manner far less dramatic yet undeniably reminiscent of her mother.

“Good morning to you too, Pen,” he sniffs with what he pretends is some dignity in reply and carries the pancakes over to the table. “You can have a seat, too.”

She stares at him incredulously for a moment. “Nooo, really? Amazing, _muchas gracías_ , I am allowed to sit down at my own table.” And so, she does. “What are you doing here already anyway? Mami doesn’t even look like she made the coffee yet.”

“She didn’t,” Schneider agrees readily, “I did.”

Penelope bursts into laughter, then stops immediately once she notices her mother doesn’t seem to find his words as hilariously improbable as she does. “Wait, you did?”

“Sure. Just like these bad boys.” He points at the two laughably high pancake stacks. “Boom.”

“Am I smelling pancakes??” The delighted yell precedes the audible trampling of two sets of feet just barely and Elena and Alex clamor to get in front of each other to be the first kid at the table.

“¡Hey, hey, hey, _más despacio_!” Penelope admonishes the two to little avail.

“Awesome!” Alex climbs into his seat and smiles widely at the food in front of him.

Elena nods enthusiastically as she sits down, as well. “Totally!”

“Well, now that everybody’s here for breakfast,” Schneider announces and points at the first stack, “These are blueberry. Those are chocolate chip. At first, I also wanted to make some with mini marshmallows but I got onto a cocoa binge last night and also needed some colored highlights for my macaroni pictures. I’m building a portfolio, y’know, so thay gotta be really good. But that means I was out of mini marshmallows before I got down here. As compensation, I’ve brought some maple syrup – genuine Canadian, the good stuff. So, you’re welcome. Dig in.”

“You did all this?” Elena stares at him with big eyes.

“Why is everybody doubting that,” Schneider whines without any real heat behind it.

“Because the last time you cooked for us, it was awful!” Leave it to Elena to be brutally honest.

“Well, first of all that was lunch, so it was totally different,” Schneider defends himself with a raised index finger. “And second of all, your abuelita hadn’t shown me how to make coffee back then, so breakfast would’ve been out of the question. And Alex can confirm that I was a great student of hers. I make a mean sopa de pollo now.”

“It’s true,” Alex supports him with a shrug.

“And third of all, I wanted Lydia to have a great and relaxed start in the day and a special meal.”

“Why today, though?” Penelope looks at him curiously.

Schneider shrugs half-heartedly and scratches his beard before answering slowly.  “Well, I’ve never really wanted to celebrate this day before. I guess I didn’t actually have-“

“What day?” Elena interrupts him, her voice panicked as she mentally cranks out a calendar. “You don’t have an important sobriety anniversary we forgot, do you?”

“Is it your birthday?” Alex offers with a similar level of sudden alarm.

“It’s not your citizenship anniversary yet,” Elena continues and counts more possibilities on her fingers.

“Nah,” Schneider shrugs and his cheeks may be reddening a bit. Then, he smiles at Lydia and focuses entirely on her. His voice drops almost half an octave and gains a sincere and serious edge it usually lacks. His accent is still atrocious anyway. Nobody cares about that when they process his words. “Feliz día de la Madre, Lydia.”

Lydia coos in delight and reaches for his hand, firmly clasping it with her own. “ _Gracias, mijo_.”

Penelope has to clear her throat discreetly and blinks furiously because for some strange reason her eyes seem to water. Then, something clicks together in her brain. She doesn’t even feel particularly sorry to burst the atmosphere like a soap bubble.

“Wait a minute,” she turns to Alex and Elena with a wicked gleam in her eyes and a grin tugging at her lips. “And what do I get for Mother’s Day?”

The teenagers look at each other in alarm and start talking over each other rapidly.

“Mother’s Day is corporate propaganda to make you buy stigmatized items stupidly coded as feminine-“

“Would you look at the time, we really have to leave for school!”

“-and it tries to condition people into thinking it’s okay to show love to your mother for just one day of the entire year! And-“

Penelope looks at the two, highly amused. “You were going to buy roses and chocolate on the way home because you forgot to prepare something, weren’t you?”

The defeated sighs echo in unison. “Yes, we were.”

“Alright, but next year I want a special breakfast, too. You can thank Schneider for setting high expectations.”

“Thanks, Schneider.” They do not sound remotely sincere – quite the opposite, in fact, and it amuses the man to no end. He flashes them his brightest smile.

“You’re very welcome.”

**Author's Note:**

> Technically, I'm publishing this one day late but who cares.


End file.
